College Basketball: This time, fast start is on NIU’s radar

In fact, his plan went out the window early as the Huskies lost 10 of their first 12 to open and never regrouped amid a 5-25 season. Like most coaches coming off a down season, Montgomery believes this year’s team can turn it around. But unlike most of those other leaders, Montgomery gets to try to build some momentum with five straight home games to start the season.

“It’s a pretty nice schedule when you see the first five games at home. There are no guarantees you’re going to win them just because they’re at home, but you sure like to see that unfold like that,” Montgomery said Thursday after his team wrapped up its final practice before today’s season opener.

“For most teams, it’s key. But for us, a good start is a huge key to what we want to do.”

The Huskies open against Nebraska-Omaha, and then take on James Madison, San Jose State and Milwaukee in the three-day NIU Invitational before hosting St. Joseph’s (Ind.) on Nov. 24. Montgomery knows the competition will get tougher as the season progresses — starting when they first hit the road with a trip to Big Ten’s Nebraska on Nov. 30 — but he sounds confident when expressing the fact that “there are some winnable games there for us early, we just have to go out and earn them.”

Another thing the Huskies have this year that they didn’t last is size in the lane. Smaller teams usually struggle on the boards, and while the mini-Huskies found ways to rebound, it cost them in other areas. But with 6-foot-9 Jordan Threloff, 6-8 twins Keith and Kevin Gray, 6-7 senior Aksel Bolin and 6-6 sophomore Darrell Bowie all expected to see plenty of court time, the Huskies have plenty of big bodies roaming the paint.

They plan on taking advantage in every way possible.

“We’ve finally got a Division-I roster here; we’ve finally got some real size out there in Huskie uniforms,” Montgomery said with a chuckle. “But seriously, it’s nice to have size, but you’ve got to be able to use it, and in the right ways. We will. We will make sure of that.”

NIU lost its last 11 games of the 2012-13 campaign, and then lost its only double-digit scorer (Abdel Nader) to graduation. But Bolin (7.4 points and 4.2 rebounds per game last year) and Bowie (5.9 points and a team-high 48 offensive rebounds) return to lead a young group that includes eight freshmen or sophomores, and they intend on starting their climb right out of the gates.

“We’re still trying to build our tradition here,” Montgomery added. “And the way to do that is to go out and get a bunch of wins early on, and get it rolling.

“That’s what it’s going to take, and that what we intend on doing, starting (tonight.)”